


Sealed in Ink

by OwlOfDeath



Series: Beyond Sand and Sea [10]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Angst, Anthropomorphic, Blood and Violence, Character Development, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Fantasy, Gen, Killing, Loss, Non-Sexual Slavery, Original Character(s), Pirates, Sibling Love, Strong Female Characters, Survival, Suspense, Team as Family, Vol'Dun, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, vulpera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwlOfDeath/pseuds/OwlOfDeath
Summary: Jona's family lost everything but each other when the Alliance burned the caravan they were part of to the ground. They have been barely surviving for months, and finally decide to do something about it.
Series: Beyond Sand and Sea [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792156
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3





	Sealed in Ink

**Author's Note:**

> This work takes place a little more than a month before the events of [Mousetrap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24779302).

“I’m _not_ sure about this,” Tamsin argued, “but I think it’s _necessary_. What choice do we have, we’re barely surviving—“  
  
“Enough already,” Mikka snapped, low but frustrated, “we’ve been talking in circles about this, there’s nothing new to say.”  
  
“It’s the best way to be sure we can stay together,” Cato continued, picking up where his mate had been interrupted, reassuring her. “We have looked at all our options, and we’ve all agreed this is the only way forward.”  
  
“Isn’t that the definition of a necessity, then? What’s there to talk about?” Mikka sighed, her voice pragmatic, but not cold, as she tossed the crabs closer to the fire with a stick. The flames crackled, licking at their shells and appendages as they clicked and twitched. She flicked them right back as some managed to try and flee, sending small clouds of sand into the air.   
  
“I’m not losing another child,” Tamsin shuddered, holding Vesp closer, carefully and gently, avoiding putting pressure on her bandages. Jona said nothing, knees against his chest and arms around his legs as he rested his cheek on them, looking in the opposite direction from the fire. He hated this part, the sounds they made. It wasn’t your normal cries of pain and distress, but he could still sense it somehow in the way their bodies would spasm, limbs scratching and clicking against their carapace. Even though there was no blood it made him nauseous to watch it, to hear it, but he still ate them all the same.  
  
“Shit,” she cursed as one of the hermit crabs pinched the stick with a desperate claw, convulsions going through its legs, the stick almost snapping.   
  
“Language!” Tamsin scolded, but it sounded half-hearted. They were all so tired after the long day of trekking through the dunes. Even if they stopped in the shade to rest through the worst of the midday heat they had been walking since before dawn, and kept going until recently, when it got too dark to travel safely.   
  
Following close to the coastline they could quite easily hunt for morsels in the wet sand and rock pools at low tide, enough to keep them going the distance they had left. And if that failed there were nests all along the cliffs, even if that was a last resort. Neither Jona nor Mikka were as confident climbers as Vesp or Kirin had been, and the seabirds all had different nesting seasons. You never quite knew what you’d find inside the nests. Or the eggs, either, when you cooked them in the shell.  
  
It had been a twisted kind of luck that the caravan had been camped where it was when the Alliance attacked, because it meant they were close enough to the port town to make it there on foot. There was talk of sailors there, of pirates, who’d lend money to vulpera. Money they could use to rebuild their life, and to be able to stay together as a family. Luck in the middle of all the despair, maybe.   
Not being attacked at all had been preferable. But you couldn’t change the past.   
  
Those who made it through the Alliance onslaught had spent months trying to live off nothing, despondent, starving and mourning vulpera who’d lost their homes, their possessions and loved ones. Struggling to survive on what little the desert had to offer after losing everything. Except in some cases where they still had each other, like Jona, who had his family. Or what remained of it, now Kirin was gone. They had made it out alive, though Vesp had been so badly injured in the fel fires no one thought she would survive at all at first. In the end she did, even if sometimes, when the pain had been too much, she had told them she wished she hadn’t.   
  
The large clams popped open, plump and steaming, and Mikka used one of the legs of the hermit crab to pull them from the fire before she thrust the stubborn critter into the middle of the flames. It dangled from the stick, but even after it was surely dead it wouldn’t let go.  
  
“No one is losing anyone,” Cato stated finally, putting one arm around his mate, and the other around Jona, drawing him in and making his butt scrape against the rough sand, “once we get this loan we can get a new wagon, we’ll return to the caravan and rebuild. Vulpera are tough, we’ll get through this too.”  
  
“Saying something over and over doesn’t make it true,” Mikka countered testily, but from her expression she regretted it the moment it left her lips. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “let’s just eat.”  
  
\- - -  
  
The ruins reached all the way from the sea and far inland, forcing them deeper into the desert. They had set out even before dawn, but everything always took longer than anticipated, and by the time the sun was high in the sky they were only about halfway back to the coast. Trapped between ruins swarming with sand trolls and an open expanse that gave no kind of cover whatsoever left them little choice but to wait as their parents scouted ahead. A crumbling wall on the outskirts of the old city, or temple, or whatever it had once been gave the three of them that little bit of shade that made the scorching heat bearable.   
  
“Hey, what are you thinking about?” Mikka asked. He was staring at the ground, but he could tell she was talking to him anyway. Jona lifted his gaze, glancing over at her but avoiding her face, shrugging. He didn’t feel like sharing, because that meant he had to speak his name. “Oh,” she sighed, frowning back at him, “yeah, me too, I guess.”  
  
“I’m thirsty,” Vesp rasped in her tiny voice. She didn’t talk much these days, something she and Jona had in common now, only that’s how he’d always been, and it wasn’t really like her at all. Mikka shuffled over to offer her younger sister the water skin, helping her drink from it. There were only a few years between them, both sisters older than Jona was, but next to her Vesp still looked kind of small.   
  
“There you go,” Mikka smiled, brushing her hand over her head, stroking her fur, “how are you holding up?”   
  
“Fine,” she mumbled, “just so damn sick of it all.”  
  
“Yeah...” Mikka sloshed the water around; checking how much was left, then nudged Jona on the shoulder and held it out for him next. He took it without a word, sucking out a mouthful slowly, trying to enjoy it. To be grateful they had water to drink, at least.   
  
“What was that?” Vesp whispered, ears suddenly perked, “are they back already?”  
  
“Shh!” Mikka hissed in one quick breath, almost putting her hand over her sister’s mouth in her haste to quiet her down, shaking her head. Her eyes went to meet Jona’s wordlessly, and he could read the meaning right away on her face. Another heartbeat and then he heard it too, the sand shifting behind them, and the unmistakable, rhythmic sound of footsteps.  
  
The troll came into view only an instant later, and the expression on her face when she saw them was priceless, really, but he didn’t have the opportunity to fully appreciate it. Mikka scrambled to her feet, teeth bared and short sword drawn. “Protect her,” she hissed at him, but his heart was in his throat and he couldn’t really answer her.   
  
Without hesitation Mikka sprung at the troll, feinting and slipping past her, slashing at her thigh. But the element of surprise could only do so much against an opponent so much bigger than you. By the time she had turned the troll had gathered enough of her wits to fight back, her kick hitting Mikka right in the chest.   
  
Jona felt frozen in place, and it was Vesp who came to _him_ , her hands firm on his shoulders as she snarled at him, then pulled at his arm, dragging him further from the scrap. He snapped out of it somewhat, enough to take her hand, to follow and help her around to the other side of the wall.   
  
“Help her,” Vesp whimpered, tone frail yet demanding, eyes wide as she started at him as if asking what the hell he was waiting for. With his back against the wall he pulled the dagger from his belt, struggling to take a full breath into his lungs as he slunk back the way they came, his instincts screaming at him he was moving in the _wrong_ direction.  
  
The troll was advancing on her, but Mikka was fast, surefooted. She spotted Jona past the other woman’s long legs, but said nothing: left him an opening at her back. His hands were shaking so bad he almost dropped the weapon.  
  
“Father fucker!” Mikka sneered at the woman in Zandali, taunting her closer, making it _easy for him_. Even so Jona’s attack was clumsy as he stabbed, hesitant, even if he tried to put his whole weight into it. It came at an awkward angle and the blade only nicked her, but it was enough to make a tendril of blood run slickly down her thigh.   
  
“Desert rats, I’ll flay you alive!” she howled at them in anger, pivoting around to lunge at him. He stumbled backwards in his haste to get away, falling over, and her axe swirled right past him close enough for him to feel it in his fur.   
  
The warm spray blinded him, made him yelp and flinch as it spattered all over his face, into his eyes, his mouth. He wiped at it in panic at first, blinking desperately to see what was happening, turning the world pink. But it wasn’t _his_ blood. There was a wound staring back at him, wet and glistening right through the woman’s abdomen. She crumbled where she stood, opening her mouth, but at first no sound came out except a dry wheezing. Mikka was on her in seconds, kicking at her face. She reached out for Jona’s weapon and took it from his limp grip, slashing the troll’s throat before she had the chance to try and scream again.   
  
“S-sands!” Mikka gasped, winded and trembling from adrenaline, “that was _close_.” Jona was trying hard not to gag, to keep the water _down_. Bitter bile rose in his throat, cold sweat prickling at his back as he stared at the woman’s face, her gaze going flat and dull before his very eyes. The blood was gushing at first, almost far enough to reach his feet, then just oozed for a few moments until it turned into little more than a lazy trickle. There was so _much_ of it. “Where’s Vesp?” she asked him, voice already steady.   
  
“Here,” Vesp answered, stalking around the side of the wall, her own dagger uselessly drawn. “I’m here.”  
  
Mikka walked up to him, offered her hand. She wasn’t smiling, but there was a look in her eye. “Well done,” she said simply as she pulled him to his feet. “We’re alright.”  
  
She knelt down by the dead troll and started to look through her clothes, checking for pockets and emptying them out. She wasn’t carrying any kind of bag, so likely she lived nearby. A couple of coins, coppers, and a simple face mask that would barely help against the wind and sand, a seashell lustrous with mother of pearl. Nothing really useful, but Mikka pocketed all of it anyway. You never knew. The axe on the other hand was crude, both heavy and rusty; hardly worth the effort it would take to carry it with them. So Mikka left it where it lay in the sand, one three digit hand still curled around the handle.  
  
\- - -  
  
Their parents returned from their scouting when the sun was starting to set. They had decided to stay put in spite of the fight, the troll had only found them by chance, and it was as safe as any place they would find around here. Tamsin’s eyes went wide as two full moons when she saw the dead troll, and at Jona’s bloodied face, but as soon as she was assured none of them had been hurt she helped him scrub the worst of it away with a faceful of fine sand instead.  
  
“We found a way across,” Cato explained meanwhile, using a stick to make a rough sketch in the sand. “We have to go through part of the ruins, but if we do it after the sun has set there’s adequate cover for stealth. There’s a lot of trolls in the area but they don’t seem alert, no one’s really keeping watch.”  
  
“Good,” Mikka grunted, pointing at one of the lines in the sand, “let’s split up here, you two take Vesp and me and Jona will take this route. It’ll make us harder to spot, but we’re still within range to help if something happens.”   
  
The ruins smelled bad, of sand trolls and their waste. Even if they were situated near the sea the air seemed to stagnate between the crumbling buildings, haphazard walls constricting the wind from flowing freely through the sun baked streets.  
  
“Stick close,” Mikka whispered softly, as if he needed to be told. He was only a step behind her at all times. There were trolls all around, silhouettes against the torchlight that they were going out of their way to avoid, but they were easy to circumvent. Sometimes someone would pass nearby, forcing them to press their backs to the closest cover, or get down with their stomachs to the ground, holding their breath. But by the time the stars were really starting to light up the sky they had made it through the worst of it without incident. Like Cato had said the trolls weren’t watchful, they seemed passive, perhaps trusting in their crumbling fortress of eroding sandstone to keep them safe.   
  
There were only a couple of old walls standing this far out, a wide and sand swept road stretching towards the sea and the ancient harbor there. Tamsin hugged them both tightly as they were reunited, the sky reflecting in her eyes as she smiled at her children. “Not much farther now,” she said low, sounding more confident than she had in days.  
  
\- - -  
  
It was only a few short hours past dawn when they first spotted it, the small port town on the sea sprawling in the far distance, the heat rising from the sand making it look almost ethereal. Like a mirage. Mikka was carrying Vesp on her back, the previous day had been taxing for her, and even if she was getting better she wasn’t _well_ yet. Jona didn’t know what to feel when he saw the town, part of him was relieved they had finally made it, but another, almost bigger part was anxious about what would happen now.   
  
“Finally,” Cato exclaimed, squeezing Tamsin’s hand and smiling as he waved the children to follow, “this shouldn’t take us more than half a day.”  
  
“I bloody hope so,” Vesp muttered, resting her chin on her sister’s sinewy shoulder, tattered tail dangling pitifully. The fire had burnt most of the fur away from it, leaving a few random patches, but so far no new hairs had grown back out.  
  
“Yeah, no need to worry about me or anything,” Mikka teased her sister, “having you on my back is no worse than carrying a plucked vulture, I think I’ll manage.”  
  
“Hey, don’t be mean! I have _teeth_ ,” Vesp cried, playfully biting her older sister’s ear with a grin, “so I’m still more like a furry saurolisk than a plucked vulture!” Jona side glanced at them, not really getting the joke as the sisters snickered at each other, but their banter eased the oppressive feeling in his chest just that little bit. Sincere smiles felt like a pretty rare thing lately.  
  
The town surrounding the harbor was built on rickety looking piers and decking closest to the water, some two-storey buildings closer to the desert where the ground was more stable and level. But most of it was made up of shacks, unpainted wood bleached and weather worn.   
  
“What now?” Mikka asked, letting Vesp down from her back and taking her hand instead. She held her other hand out for Jona. At first he only looked at it reluctantly, but when she wouldn’t give up he eventually relented, taking it with a sigh.   
  
“From what I heard about these people they usually stay close to their ships, so maybe we can find someone in the harbor who can point us in the right direction,” Tamsin said, taking Jona’s other hand, not giving him a choice. “Everyone, stick together, no wandering about yet.”  
  
“Let’s go then,” Mikka agreed, taking point, “better to get this over and done with.”   
  
It was harder than expected to orientate through the town, the streets, shacks and houses seemingly built haphazardly without any real plan or organized structure in mind. People were walking in all directions, and a watchful pair of eyes might be able to spot the nimble fingered urchins slipping through the crowd, sticky fingers dipping into pockets and cutting purses. But that wasn’t much of a concern for them, they carried nothing of value.   
  
Mikka led them where the crowd was thinner, but even so they were pushed and jostled as people hurried past, not shooting so much as a glance in their direction as everyone went about their business. They weren’t the only vulpera in town, either, but neither of them saw anyone they recognized.   
  
After going down the same street three times Mikka gave into temptation and climbed one of the buildings, getting her bearings from above. While they waited Jona snuffed the air, picking up on roasting meat from the house right next door, fighting the urge to lick his lips. They hadn’t eaten anything proper since they had camped that night on the beach. “It’s not even far,” she snorted as she hopped back down, “follow me!”  
  
Several vessels were docked in the harbor in front of them. Most were fishing boats, but two of them were huge and imposing ships with large, carved figures at the bow that caught Jona’s attention as he waited. One looked like a screaming woman, her chest bare and wild hair carved to look like it was moving in the wind. She looked angry, while the other figure, also a woman, looked mostly serious, pointing ahead as if to tell the ship which direction to go in.  
  
The final coin was dropped into the pouch, and it set off a chain reaction, making the pile shift as it settled with a soft clinking, pulling him back from his musings. Jona had never seen that much money before. They rarely dealt with coins in their trading, and even if it did happen it was definitely never even close to these kinds of amounts.  
  
“There,” the man said simply, pulling the pouch closed by the strings and tying it loosely, “that’s all of it. Just your signatures left, then.” He pushed the contract across the table with one finger, a pen already resting on it.   
  
“Jojo, honey,” Tamsin whispered in Vulpera, but not so low the man couldn’t hear her even if he probably didn’t understand what she was saying, “you know how to write our names in their symbols, don’t you?” She placed a hand on the back of his shoulder, gently ushering him towards the table as she stepped aside.   
  
“Yeah, I guess...” he mumbled, shooting the man opposite them a careful glance. He was smiling in a vacant kind of way, bored probably, in the middle of just another business transaction.   
  
“On the line, please,” he explained, his finger pointing but not at anything in particular.  
  
“Mmm,” Jona hummed, unwilling to speak Common, self conscious about what was probably a ridiculous accent. He picked the pen up, and for an instant he thought how much more natural it felt in his hand compared to the dagger in his belt. It took him a while to write down all of their names because he didn’t write Common as much as he _read_ it, and he had to spell them out phonetically in his head. When he was done he slid the paper back towards the man, who snatched it up unceremoniously, folding it several times before putting it between the pages of a heavy ledger.   
  
“Great, thanks for your business, the gold is all yours,” he said finally, looking up as he closed the ledger with an air of finality. “We’ll just take the individuals acting as collateral right away then, if it’s all the same to you.”  
  
“Take?” Jona stuttered, speaking before he could think, “what does that mean?”  
  
“It’s in the contract, as an incentive to make sure you’ll pay us back. As _security_ , you understand. And well, a chance for you to work off your debt, I guess.”  
  
“But we—“ he started, startling as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.  
  
“Yeah, him, and that girl and the old man,” the human said casually, waving towards them in turn, “leave the other two with the money. It’s theirs now, after all.”  
  
“ _What_?” Mikka growled, starting to pull away, but before either of them could do much of anything the men who had been standing behind them all along swept in with practiced ease, taking their weapons, large hands gripping arms and necks.   
  
“Don’t struggle,” one of them grunted, “we _will_ hurt you.”  
  
Tamsin’s eyes went wide as they started to drag them away, mouth open in shock. She stared at the man behind the table, holding her arm out in front of Vesp as if to shield her from what was happening. “Let them go!” she snarled, “we’ll pay you back, you have our word! We gave you our _word_!”  
  
“That’s what they all say, but a deal’s a deal. You’ll have them returned to you when we have what you owe, with interest,” he shrugged.   
  
“Tamsin? What’s happening?” Jona called anxiously, trying to tug his arm free, but the grip was like a vice, and his feeble attempts didn’t even slow the bulky human down as he dragged him away. Mikka was putting up more of a fight, but a backhand hard enough to snap her head back stunned her and made her sag in his grip, getting pulled staggering along.   
  
“I told you to fucking not put up a fight,” the man holding her sneered in annoyance.  
  
Jona was quickly starting to panic, his mother and sister getting more and more swallowed up by the crowd, and his upper arm felt like it was going to snap in the crushing grip. “Where are they taking us? Tamsin!?” he cried, voice going high and frantic, but they were already gone from his view, and if they were trying to answer him he couldn’t hear it. “ _Mom_!?”  
  
\- - -  
  
The three of them were the only people in the holding cell, and the only source of light was a small and barred window high up on the wooden door. They had been left there overnight, and since they were thrown inside no one had come to check in on them. At first Mikka had fought tooth and claw to get out, screaming at anyone or anything that passed by outside. Usually she was ignored, but sometimes someone would spit in through the bars, or peer curiously at them as they walked past.   
  
Cato by contrast was sitting in the corner farthest from the door; uselessly trying to calm her down by telling her that there was no use. That she should just _give it up_. It was the first time Jona had ever seen that look on his father’s face. Even after Kirin was taken, even after their home was reduced to ashes, when Vesp was hurt and they thought she was going to die, after _everything_ Cato had always been the one who held them together. Now, locked up like this, he was like a different man. Jona had never felt claustrophobic before, sleeping five people in one wagon barely left enough room to turn in your sleep, but now in this tiny cell he could barely breathe.  
  
“What just happened,” Mikka asked rhetorically into space, hoarse from yelling her throat raw. Jona just shook his head, not looking up from where he was huddled in the corner next to his father, seeking some kind of comfort and only finding that despair was contagious.  
  
“They tricked us. We _failed_ you,” Cato said weakly. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
“So we should fight back,” she snarled at him.   
  
“It’s useless, they have all of us, and if we fight them they’ll just hurt—“  
  
“And here they are, Captain,” a voice came from just outside the door and cut Cato short, a face appearing on the other side of the bars.   
  
“ _That_? They don’t look like much,” the man in the window said with a scowl, green eyes evaluating them dispassionately. There was a tricorne hat on his head, well-worn leather and heavy looking, cropped sandy hair barely visible from under it. He had a short and neat beard on his chin that connected to his moustache, wrapping around his mouth.  
  
“You’re the first one here, so you can take your pick.”  
  
“Is that a _woman_?” he scoffed. “What is she doing here, I thought we came to find a _sailor_.”  
  
“Uh, well, yes. Like I said, Captain Forester, you can choose either one.”  
  
“I run a clean ship, not a brothel; women are too weak for sailing. You should find somewhere else to place her,” the captain said gruffly, glancing at the man beside him disdainfully. “I’ll take the boy. He looks small now but the sea should toughen him up.”  
  
“Very good,” the other man mumbled, writing something down by the scratching sound, handing the keys jingling over to the captain.   
  
“Give them to my first mate,” he grunted, turning to leave. “I’ll leave the rest to you.”  
  
The first mate wasn’t a subtle man, short and with a rugged, broad face that didn’t bother to hide how he truly felt about what he was looking at. And he wasn’t impressed.  
  
“No wait! Just take me instead, I know what he said but I am _capable_! I’ll work as hard as anyone! Just leave him alone, _please_ ,” Mikka pleaded, words desperate and rambling as they tripped over her tongue, her Common barely coherent, holding on to one of Jona’s arms as the man yanked at the other. Cato got to his feet, bracing himself into half standing against the wall as he watched in stunned silence.   
  
“Enough!” the human growled, pulling harder, and with a yelp Mikka’s fingers slipped through his fur and let go, claws scratching his skin. The first mate aimed a half-hearted kick at her, only grazing but making her stumble back nonetheless.   
  
“Jojo! Do what they say!” she gasped after him, dark amber eyes meeting his terrified gaze. “You have to survive! You hear me!? We’ll find each other!”   
  
Jona almost fell on his face as the man threw him out the door, slamming it shut behind him. “I’d listen to the wench,” the first mate said flatly, getting him walking with a harsh push, “it’s in your own best interest to _behave_.”


End file.
